April 11, 2002

Title IX: A Look at a Landmark Law's Impact

Since 1972, federally-funded educational institutions have been required to provide their male and female students with equal athletic opportunities. Thirty years ago, the passage of Title IX promised to change the face of collegiate athletics forever.

Initially, the pace of this change left something to be desired. It took schools years to create an equitable sports environment for women with regard to opportunity. Many more years passed before the funding for these sports began to approach the amounts of money that athletic departments were setting aside for their men’s teams.

Only recently have universities like Cornell begun to examine gender equity in terms of coaching, staff, equipment and team travel budgets.

“There is no doubt that times have changed in the past 15 years,” noted Cornell women’s lacrosse coach Jenny Graap ’86.

Graap is truly appreciative of all the resources available to her team today. A summary of her time as an athlete here in the 1980s illustrates just how far women’s athletics have progressed at Cornell in the last decade and a half.

“When I was a two- sport athlete at Cornell, we had to share uniforms, including cleats, with other women’s teams. The women’s lacrosse team didn’t have a locker room — we carried our sticks to class every day,” Graap explained.

Lack of funding for women’s sports also impacted team travel. Graap and her teammates could only afford to attend games within a short distance of Cornell.

Female athletes and their coaches were equally affected by the funding deficits. In the late 80s and early 90s, Cornell’s athletic department could pay coaches of women’s teams only a fraction of what it can today. Frequently, assistant coaches and even head coaches could secure only part-time positions.

“There was never anyone to come talk to or to help coach you during the day because the head coach had to teach two or three P.E. classes each semester,” Graap explained. “We didn’t have full-time assistant coaches.”

Women’s ice hockey head coach Carol Mullins, who began coaching as a volunteer in 1992, reported a similar experience.

“When I came, the head coach was part-time and there were no assistants other than volunteers. There really weren’t that many [women’s ice hockey] programs in the U.S. that had full-time coaches,” Mullins explained.

“When I became an assistant here, I believe I was one of the first two women’s hockey full-time assistants in the U.S. So that says a lot about what Cornell has done for women’s hockey in the last 10 years. It’s come a long way since I’ve been here,” added Mullins.

In the last decade, Cornell and other universities have made concerted efforts to level the playing field for men and women by striving for a more equitable distribution of the athletic budget. As a result, women’s athletics have garnered unprecedented amounts of local and national attention as programs have become more and more competitive.

“I’ve seen that when you give women some resources, you get results,” said Graap, whose team is currently ranked fifth in the nation.

Unfortunately, there are still some funding discrepancies between the two genders that go beyond the reaches of the Title IX legislation. Each athletic team’s budget at Cornell is sustained by three major financial sources: university funds, endowments, and alumni support.

Although women now enjoy a substantial portion of the total funds allocated by the university, they lag far behind their male counterparts in terms of alumni support. Since most of the men’s athletic programs were founded long before universities even considered adding women’s teams, they have far more alumni and receive much more financial support from their former athletes.

“Every team is expected to raise more money [each year],” explained Anita Brenner, Cornell’s associate athletic director. “It’s a challenge for a lot of women’s teams who have younger alumni, some of whom aren’t as well established.”

To compensate for this deficit, the athletic department tries to budget more money to the teams that can’t accumulate funds by any other means. But it’s difficult to ensure that both genders receive the same financial benefits when extra-collegiate money comes pouring in to men’s athletic programs from their more established alumni bases.

“There’s not a lot you can do about it,” said coach Mullins.

“I think gender equity and how it pertains to the alumni contributions is an extremely interesting subject,” said Graap. “To me, there are some glaring inconsistencies.”

It can be frustrating for those committed to improving women’s collegiate athletics when alumni from men’s sports have large gifts to their old teams and the women’s programs receive nothing.

In some cases, however, men’s alumni gifts work to the advantage of both sexes. Money that goes towards building renovations or new playing fields, for example, can benefit men’s and women’s teams equally.

“[Alumni gifts] indirectly affect women’s programs,” explained Mullins. “I’m grateful for the support that the men’s hockey alumni have given them because it indirectly affects us.”

In an age where operation costs seem to be spiraling to greater heights every year, it is important that men’s and women’s teams make the most of alumni donations and university funds.

“[The operating expenses of] every single team across the board have increased dramatically. Just a couple of years ago, I think we were bringing in less than a million dollars for annual fund gifts. Now, we’re raising over two million dollars,” explained Brenner.

Brenner cited away games as the major contributor to the recent budget inflation.

“Team traveling expenses have skyrocketed,” Brenner said.

To make matters worse, the recent economic slump has caused a decrease in alumni giving levels this year.

“It has really affected us profoundly,” said Brenner.

To counterbalance these fiscal pitfalls, the athletic department is hoping that in the coming years, some programs will be able to support themselves entirely on endowments and alumni donations.

“Some years ago, we created this goal of having a number of teams achieve financial independence, and we’re still working toward that,” explained Brenner. “Pie in the sky, we have fully-endowed programs all over the place, but we’re so far from that.”

Mullins suggested that the answer to Cornell’s budgeting difficulties might be solved by adopting a more parsimonious attitude towards spending.

“The players love to look good, they love having the sharp things, but it’s really just about going out there and playing the game,” she said. “I think we could do the exact same thing with less money. I think all of us need to streamline. We can do better.”

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This weekend, the baseball team (9-14, 1-4 Ivy) will travel to Brown and Yale to play its second round of Ivy contests. Cornell’s endurance was tested early this week as its Saturday doubleheader with Dartmouth was postponed until Monday for inclement weather. It was unsuccessful in a twinbill against Harvard, split the following day with the Green, and 24 hours later traveled to Binghamton and swept a pair of games 6-5 and 9-1. Head coach Tom Ford did not think, however, that the string of games took a toll on the team. “They are young guys and they know what they are doing,” he said. “Hopefully they are in good enough shape to be able to do that.” What the team does hope to get out of its wins over the Bearcats is momentum going into tomorrow’s games. “That kind of thing always gets you going a little bit,” senior centerfielder Andrew Luria commented. “We hope we can grab some momentum from [those games]. We played some pretty good baseball and played well defensively,” Ford agreed. “So, hopefully we can build upon that, but each time you go out, you definitely have to do it again.” The weekend’s first challenge will come against Yale (6-14, 1-3). The Bulldogs are coming off a tough stretch. Last weekend, it lost two games to Columbia and split with Penn, then lost a single game to Iona College on Wednesday 8-2. Despite the losing record, six of the Bulldogs’ defeats have come by only one run. Outfielder Chris Elkins is leading the team with a .372 average. He also has one home run on the year, a grand slam two weeks ago in the team’s 14-2 win over New Haven. Second baseman Stephen Duke has a .333 average and is the only other player on the team hitting above .300. “They have been playing pretty good defense and are getting pretty good pitching and it seems like their bats are coming around a little bit lately too,” Ford said. On Sunday, Cornell will then travel to Providence, R.I., to face Brown (11-13, 2-2). Winners of five of its past seven games, the Bears split two doubleheaders with Penn (6-18, 2-6) and Columbia (13-12, 3-1) last weekend. On Wednesday, Brown also split with the University of Rhode Island. In game one, John Cappello (1-1) threw a two-hit complete game shutout with two walks and six strikeouts for a 6-0 victory. The Bears dropped the nightcap 6-5 in extra innings. Offensively, catcher Greg Metzger is leading the team with a .352 average. In last weekend’s league games, he was 9-for-13 with a home run, two doubles and six RBI. For his efforts, the catcher was named co-Ivy League player of the week. In the team’s win against Rhode Island, Metzger was 2 for 4 with a double and two RBI and he enters the weekend riding an 11-game hitting streak. The Red will likely also face pitcher Jonathon Stern (4-2). He was the victor in the team’s 2-1 win over Penn last weekend giving up the run on two hits with six strikeouts. He owns a 3.99 ERA with a team high 26 strikeouts. He was also named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week earlier this season. “Brown is an all-around good baseball team with good pitching, they have some good hitters and they like to run, so it will be a good challenge,” Ford scouted. “We know they are a good team.” For Cornell, senior Brendan McQuaid (2-2) will take the mound in the first game against Yale and freshman Conor Kelly (0-2) will pitch in the nightcap. On Sunday, senior Erik Rico (1-3) will pitch in the first contest and sophomore Dan Baysinger (1-2) will wrap up the weekend’s play in the final game. “It has been good at times, and sometimes we have faltered a bit, but for the most part, the starters have done a good job keeping us in the game,” Ford said of the starting pitchers’ effort thus far in the season. “Two of our four starters are older guys (Rico and McQuaid) and have been starters for four years, so I think that helps a lot with their experience and leadership, and the younger guys have been following in their footsteps,” Luria explained. “The pitchers have pitched pretty well, but we beat ourselves when we don’t make good defensive plays and it costs us the game.” The Red has struggled for consistent fielding this season, and will continue to work on that aspect of its game this weekend. “Of course defense, that’s the thing that’s going to get us the wins and it’s what has killed us in the past,” Luria said of the team’s goals. “The offense has been there pretty much consistently through the season, so we can usually count on that. If everybody does his job, we will be successful.” Contributing significantly to Cornell’s success from the batter’s box is Rico. Named both co-Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week and ECAC Player of the Week for his outstanding play against Penn and Dartmouth, the pitcher/right fielder dominated in all aspects of the game. Including the team’s earlier loss to Penn State and the two double headers last weekend, Rico went 10-for-17 with two doubles, two triples, a home run and six RBI. He was also the winning pitcher in the 3-2 victory over Dartmouth, throwing six innings and striking out nine. “He is swinging the bat really well. It is nice to see because he works really hard at it,” Ford said. The head coach and senior both took similar overall views of the weekend’s matchups, encompassing the team’s one-game-at-a-time mentality. “It’s going to be like any other weekend. We just have to go out and play the way we know how to play,” Luria concluded. “This league is pretty tough and everybody is evenly matched, so it’s just a matter of how you execute on game day,” Ford encapsulated. “It would be nice to get on a roll here.”Archived article by Katherine Granish

Members of the various fraternities and sororities under the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Panhellenic Association (Panhel) combined their efforts on Sunday, April 7 to clean up Collegetown. Close to 250 students participated in Collegetown Clean Up, an annual event in which members of the Greek system clean up the streets of Collegetown in the morning. The area cleaned ranged from Route 79 to Oak Street and from Stewart Avenue up to Elmwood. The volunteers collected over 100 bags of trash in the area. “Helping the community is nothing new for the Greek system, but it’s never bad to do a little more, said Gabriel Slater ’04,” a member of Phi Psi fraternity. The City of Ithaca sponsored the event by providing trash bags, a trash compactor and a truck free of charge to take the garbage away from Collegetown. The Nines, a restaurant in Collegetown, provided space for the event as the central point where the students met to get their street assignments and receive free t-shirts as a reward for their participation efforts. This year, the fraternities that had the highest number of volunteers participating in the clean-up were Zeta Psi, Kappa Sigma and Sigma Epsilon Phi. The Delta Delta Delta and Delta Gamma sororities had the most participants for the sororities. “It was very beneficial and it was very well run. It did a lot for the community. It had a really good turn-out and the work wasn’t hard. It was probably allocated to just enough people so it was simple to do,” said Mario Rivera ’04, vice president of the Zeta Psi fraternity. “This event is important because [we are] members of the Cornell community,” said Paul El-Meouchy ’03. “We all use Collegetown, we go out in Collegetown and we don’t realize the mess that we leave this neighborhood in. I am really proud of the Greek community for showing their support for this event because the Greeks represent a fraction of the residents of Collegetown, yet they are the ones coming and cleaning up the neighborhood.” “There were a few girls who participated from our house. I think it’s a really great way for the members of the Greek system to positively influence the community. Also, it’s a good way for us to meet members outside of our houses in the Greek system,” said Michelle Sarlo ’02, a sister of the Kappa Delta sorority. Some students disapproved of the way the event was constructed. “I fundamentally disagree with the concept of Collegetown Clean Up because it implies that people in frats an sororities are littering Collegetown,” Katherine Klein ’03 said. “I would have no problem cleaning up areas of North and West campus where frats and sororities hold parties, or if both non-Greek and Greek people jointly participated in Collegetown Clean Up. I think that the non-Greek people hold more house parties in Collegetown and should participate more in Collegetown clean up,” she said. Archived article by Veronika Belenkaya